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Young Scientist Challenge

The Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge has been such an amazing experience so far. I have learned so much during this summer in the collaboration with my 3M mentor, Dr. Thunhorst. I also had the pleasure to meet Dr. Haugen, a 3M fuel cell specialist, who has given expert advice as well. Read more

These past weeks have truly been filled with hours of planning, designing, and hard work! I realized that before you can get to the hands-on part of the scientific journey, you have to plan out your experiment. But that's the easy part, right? Wrong. In the beginning of the process, it had seemed to me that the planning part of my experiment was the easiest and least time consuming. Read more

This week, I performed more research on my idea to determine if it would be possible, with satisfactory results. I find it very difficult to solve a problem if I have not gathered the appropriate information first. You need a wide knowledge base to solve a complex problem. Read more

Now that I have an idea for a way to cure an everyday challenge, I have to do some in-depth research to narrow down what it is specifically that I’m creating. It’s very hard to solve a problem without studying it first, because research is what allows you to understand the problem and prompt your thinking toward creating the solution. Read more

This week, I collected information that may benefit the remainder of my project.

It would be nearly impossible to conduct any experiment without research to provide background information necessary to create a hypothesis, or educated prediction of the test results. It is often useful to know detailed information about your topic in order to avoid “discovering” facts that are already known. Read more

I've been spending a lot of my time in my room...doing nothing but RESEARCHING!

For the past week I've been trying to become an expert at my topic...which means researching, researching, and even more researching. I don't think I've ever done more researching in my life. Read more

I have been working hard on the design for my project. It is fun but challenging! I enjoy figuring out a way to solve the problems that I am having. I have also done some research about the problems that I have. Read more

Thomas Edison tried nearly 2000 different filaments for his light bulb before one finally worked. Bill Gates said, "It's fine to celebrate success, but even more important to heed the lessons of failure". My research over the past few weeks has enabled me to experience this lesson first-hand. Read more

Before experiencing it myself, I thought invention was all about creativity. Why not? It’s definitely a huge part of it—thinking of new, unheard of ways to tackle a common problem. But, again, things aren’t always what they first appear to be. Invention, in practice, is the result of a lot of creativity paired with a TON of knowledge about both the problem itself and the science that makes up your solution. Read more

Hey everyone!
Wow- time really does seem to fly quickly! With the end of August rolling in, some of us have another exciting thing to look for- a new school year! I'll be expecting new, different challenges, such as juggling my school work and YSC project, and I'm definitely looking forward to my last year in middle school =)Read more